


It's all gonna shift

by stars_inthe_sky



Series: Romcoms [1]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: #BuckyNat Week, F/M, Mostly Gen, POV Natasha Romanov, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:43:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3558287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_inthe_sky/pseuds/stars_inthe_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liho, <i>likho</i>, luck. (Or not.)</p><p>(Prompt for #buckynat week)</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's all gonna shift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [basset_voyager](https://archiveofourown.org/users/basset_voyager/gifts).



He’s standing at her sink when she comes in. There had been no indication of forced entry; even now, aside from the sound of the tap running, Natasha wouldn’t have suspected his presence were he not standing right in front of her.

The man whose bloody, generations-long ledger she’s still trying to reconcile with the fallen soldier Steve remembers continues filling the water bowl. His face is still, as if he hasn’t noticed her entry, but she can see the muscles of his neck tensing above the ragged flannel collar of his shirt.

Unmoving but for the hand at the waistband of her skirt near her smallest pistol, Natasha watches him for a few breaths. The surprise, she realizes, is how human he seems, in street clothes and without a loaded gun pointed between them. His expression is unflinching, but at the same time, she’s never seen someone so dangerous look so plaintive.

He turns off the tap and walks back to the open window—one she knows she had left closed the last time she was here, because it was snowing—where he places the bowl in front of the waiting black cat, next to what appears to be a half-eaten bowl of kibble.

Liho begins lapping up water intently, completely uninterested in whatever violence or human drama is about to unfold. The Winter Soldier, however, turns to Natasha and meets her eyes, intently and with purpose. She’s not intimidated, but she figures it’s normal and healthy to be a little nervous around one of the few people on Earth who’s put bullets through her and lived to tell the tale.

She starts with the obvious. “Why are you feeding Liho?”

“She was scratching at the window.” The Solider shrugs, though the corner of his mouth twitches slightly when he hears the cat’s name. “The food was in your pantry. I’m a recovering amnesiac, not stupid. Or heartless. And it seemed like she needed it.”

Natasha flashes back to the boot prints she had found leading away from Steve’s body and Sam’s comment that only someone with superhuman strength could’ve pulled Cap’s dead weight out of harm’s way like that. But the Soldier hadn’t stayed to watch him wake up, all those months ago.

His eyes shift to her hand, still behind her back. “Please don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I fed your cat. Your _beda._ ”

“She’s not my—“ Natasha begins to say, on reflex.

There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips, but it reaches his eyes and for a brief moment he looks like the person in the video clips at the Smithsonian. “And if I’d come here for a fight, Natalia, you'd know it.”

A chill uncurls along her spine, not unlike the feeling of being interrogated by a trickster god with a grudge. That name is hardly her biggest secret, but there’s no reason the Winter Soldier would need—or care—to know it. “What did you come here for, then? I’m not the one looking for you.”

He rests his hands on the table standing near the window. The fading sunlight glints gently off his metal fingers, and she recognizes the gesture for what it is and raises her own palms to show she’s unarmed. They settle in chairs on opposite sides of the table, hands parallel to each other atop it.

“I’m not the person he’s looking for. I’ve gone to the museum, the libraries…everything about him, that person—it feels like reading someone else’s story.”

“Who are you, then?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I thought you’d be the only one not to…expect someone else. And I need your help. With you, I hoped…someone might have been kind to you in the face of bad luck, too.”

“Someone was,” Natasha says quietly. She slides her hands across the tabletop to cover his. The metal is warmer than she expected, and the way he relaxes slightly at her touch makes her wonder why, absent machine guns and garrote wires, either of them have any expectations of the other in the first place. “But that wasn’t luck. It's all a choice.”

He nods, understanding.

**Author's Note:**

> [basset_voyager](https://archiveofourown.org/users/basset_voyager/works) prompted: first reunion post-catws
> 
>  _Likho_ and _beda_ both roughly mean "trouble" or "bad luck" in Ukrainian and Russian, respectively.
> 
> Also posted [here](http://stars-inthe-sky.tumblr.com/post/113822595530/buckynat-week-prompt-first-reunion-post-catws) on Tumblr. Title from MS MR's "[Dark Doo Wop](https://play.google.com/music/preview/Te2ogixdci5vdyfx7lhnbsacvxm?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#)."


End file.
